Carrier Bags

I opened the magnificent front door to the huge house to let myself in. I never bothered knocking anymore. I knew all of them had probably heard my monstrous truck engine before I even turned onto their wooded drive. If, God forbid, they didn’t, they heard my footsteps coming up the walk anyways. Alice was the first to meet me. “Oh Bella, you came!” she squealed as she flew down her winding staircase. She crashed right into me and kissed me on the cheek. “I thought you wouldn’t come!” she exclaimed as she whirled around and ran back up the stairs, leaving me breathless in the doorway. By now, Edward was watching me from his kitchen door. He had a bemused expression on his face. There was a hint of worry in his topaz eyes though. “Are you okay?” he mused. I took a deep breath; my lungs seemed to be working fine. “Yeah. Your rock of a sister just body slammed me at at least one-hundred-miles per hour.” He grinned my favourite crooked grin. “Alice will be Alice,” was all he said in comment. “I heard that!” I heard Alice squeal from somewhere upstairs. Edward laughed in the general direction of upstairs and then he turned his focus on me. As he glided forward gracefully, an electric shock went through my whole body. “Why do you always do that!” I playfully snapped. It wasn’t a question but an accusation. I knew he could hear my heart race and he smiled. He regained his composure and his prior serious demeanor returned. “Bella,” he whispered as he touched my cheek; which was now flushed with every shade of red. “You know you don’t have to do this.” He looked at me thoughtfully for a minute before he continued. “Alice and Rose will live if you don’t go with them.” “No, Edward. It’s fine.” I sighed, ignoring the irony in his statement. It wasn’t fine. He seemed to sense this. “Alice can be…very convincing. Plus, Charlie already made plans with Billy and a few weeks of”—I wrinkled my nose—“being a camp counselor in the middle of nowhere won’t kill me.” “Forgive me, but you aren’t exactly an outdoorsy girl, Bells.” When Alice said “I though you wouldn’t come” it must have tipped him off that I was debating with myself the whole way here. More than half of me didn’t want to go to camp but the other part of me did. I changed my mind every four seconds, so that’s why I had Alice confused. Edward now used this as a lever as he tried to convince that little part of me that wanted to stay to actually stay. I wasn’t having any of that though. “Rosalie is coming. If she can handle it, then so can I.” I was being stubborn and I knew it. But Edward wasn’t going to convince me to stay here in Forks for the summer if I had my way with him first. He knew the real reason I was leaving. There were these line-dancing lessons I just 'had' to take. Of course Edward waited until the right opportunity (like free dance lessons) to find the ‘country bo’ in himself. He couldn’t convince me to take them (surprise) so he brought it up to Charlie the other day. Charlie thought it was a wonderful idea and since I had no plans for the summer I should take them. I quickly made plans when I heard Alice gushing about this camp and she was more than ecstatic to drag me to my death trap of uneven hills and mosquitoes. “Fine,” he growled in defeat and surrender. He quickly pulled out of the embrace he had me in just as Esme walked in, carrying three neon pink suitcases. I raised one eyebrow. She smiled at me from behind the mountain of pink. “I am Rose’s bag carrier.” I heard her laugh that motherly laugh she possessed as she walked out the front door to a rented car without even hesitating. Rose came stalking in behind her, looking more glamorous than ever. “Uh…Rose. I thought there was a two bag limit.” I looked down at the floor. Even though we were on better terms than when I first met her, it was still hard to look her in the eyes when she was giving you her death stare. Alice appeared from behind her. I didn’t bother questioning how she managed to get from upstairs to the kitchen without my noticing. “Oh. She had a lot more bags than that. But when we told her about the two bag limit, we all but had to pull her teeth to get her down to three.” “Oh,” was all I could say. Alice beamed and looked up at me. “Where are your bags Bella?” I crinkled my eyebrows. “Why?” Butter wouldn’t melt… “Because. I want to know how many you have.” Another fake smile again. Her voice was dripping with honey. “I have two…and a half if you count my bathroom necessities bag.” “Excellent!” She bounded back up the stairs. “Jazzy,” I heard her yell. “Bella has more than I do! You owe me 50 dollars!” Rosalie and Edward were in perfect harmony as they sighed and in perfect synchronization as they rolled their eyes. I heard, surprisingly, Emmett’s light breathing as he met Rosalie in the kitchen. He grinned at her. “You look hot.” She smiled her radiant smile at him and grasped his big bear han